The Collapse of the Never-Trump Conservatives
With the installation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, and a yet-to-be-named reliable replacement for the unreliable Anthony Kennedy, Donald Trump will have confirmed himself as the most consequential conservative president of the modern era (or a close second to Reagan if you're nostalgic).
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
6/30/2018
The Collapse of the Never-Trump Conservatives
7/28/2014
Unimpeachable-Republican establishment’s great failure
Via-BBN
The Republican establishment is more afraid of impeachment talk than the White House and that says as much about their failure as Obama’s.
Photo Credit|Wiki Commons
Impeachment is in the news again not because anyone is seriously considering impeaching Obama since it is numerically and politically impossible for it to happen, but because it makes for a good political show.
Most of the current round of impeachment “talk” has centered around the narrative that the Democrats are just trying to gin up their base for the mid-terms in November and as usual the Republicans play right into the Democrats’ hands by immediately rejecting the idea that they would ever do such a thing. Putting aside any constitutional or legal arguments for impeachment, by taking it off the table politically the Republicans are doing what Obama does when he announces that the United States won’t put “boots on the ground” in any of the growing list of hotspots around the world. The Republicans, like Obama, are announcing before hand that they will not use the biggest weapon in their arsenal.
Of course for their own political benefit, Obama and the Democrats can’t allow the Republicans to cave so easily
Don’t dismiss the possibility of the House of Representatives bringing articles of impeachment against President Obama, senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer said today.
Of course Pfeiffer and the White House want the possibility of impeachment to be kept in the news; they think it helps them politically. Despite that John Boehner and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that this particular constitutional tool will never be taken out of the tool box against this president, the Obama team keeps threatening themselves with it to keep the narrative alive. It reminds me of the “Blazing Saddle” scene where the new black sheriff points his own gun at his head and threatens to shoot unless the townspeople put down their weapons. Like the townspeople in the movie, the GOP immediately puts down their weapons. This current comedy though is not fiction.
But is there more to the White House tactic than motivating the Democratic base? Of course there is, if the progressive left is known for anything it is creative and multifaceted duplicity. After all, these are the same people who gave us the “if you like your insurance you can keep it,” formula for national healthcare, knowing that the key to their success (power) is just progressing their agenda until past lies are supplanted by new lies.
So what is their alternative motive for keeping the impeachment narrative going?
He [Pfieffer] went on to say that the executive actions being considered by the White House on immigration would probably “up the likelihood” of impeachment, making the point that lawmakers such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, already have said the president is violating the law with his unilateral moves on immigration.
What they are actually doing is setting the stage for even greater abuses of executive power in the next two years and painting any Republicans that might oppose them as “fringe.” This task is made easier by establishment Republicans who join the chorus singing from the no impeachment song book. No matter what further abuses occur, the Republican establishment has let it be known that they will not pull the impeachment arrow from their quiver.
So in the coming years, if Obama should unilaterally grant amnesty to millions of illegals or fly in refugees from Central America or a dozen other executive actions that Obama and the progressives would like to enact while they hold the reins of power, what will the Republicans do, sue him? Oh yeah they are already doing that, to what end? Even if a federal court agrees to hear the case, doubtful, and even if a court agrees that Obama is abusing his executive powers what will be the remedy, arrest him? Boehner’s lawsuit will never stop Obama from doing what he damned well pleases and Republicans better accept that reality.
This is the problem with caving to incremental changes to constitutional constraints; pretty soon there aren’t any. A president or a party just ignores the laws and since politics and parties now trump country and fidelity to the constitution, basically anything goes.
The reason Boehner and the establishment are taking impeachment off the table has nothing to do with a constitutional argument but with the “politics” of it. The issues which Boehner are using to sue Obama for are arguably impeachable offenses. If arbitrarily changing or refusing to enforce laws is not impeachable then what is? It is not even that Obama is claiming that these laws are unconstitutional - that would be justifiable – his actions and decrees are in his own words, meant to “bypass congress.” If a president is permitted to bypass congress for his own political or policy goals and by doing so he is violating clear constitutional limits on his authority then that is obviously a grounds for impeachment. As Hamilton explained inFederalist Paper #66.
An absolute or qualified negative in the executive upon the acts of the legislative body, is admitted, by the ablest adepts in political science, to be an indispensable barrier against the encroachments of the latter upon the former. And it may, perhaps, with no less reason be contended, that the powers relating to impeachments are, as before intimated, an essential check in the hands of that body upon the encroachments of the executive.
If I were a judge hearing the Boehner case against Obama, I would just read that passage and ask the lawyers from congress, “why are you bothering me with this, you have your own constitutional remedy for this.” Only impeachment and conviction can solve the problem by removing the president from office – what will a court do? Tell Obama to play nice?
It is all just a sideshow but a dangerous sideshow since, knowing that impeachment is off the table, Obama can go forward abusing his authority with increasing boldness, which he has as much as said he is going to do. The Republican establishment has not only removed their most effective weapon to reigning in Obama, they have invited him to carry out even greater harm to the checks and balances necessary to maintain our system of government.
The idea seems to be that Obama and his progressive allies will at some point play by the rules, but they never have and have no intention of ever doing so and worse, they are always two steps ahead of the Republicans. An example would be Harry Reid’s using the nuclear option to undo the filibuster when it comes to executive nominations. This allowed them to pack the DC Circuit with their cronies, virtually assuring that progressive legislation will now receive a nod from the second highest court in the land. The idea that progressives will suddenly adhere to the constitution and not find methods to circumvent it is childish naivety.
If impeachment is off the table due to political reasons, which it probably is, the reason is that the Republicans – with few exceptions – have failed to clearly and forcefully explain to the American public the danger that progressivism is to our constitutional republic. They have failed to be an opposition party to a movement which is on the verge of destroying that republic and worse, they have undermined those who seek to protect the nation from elitist tyranny and crony capitalism.
There is almost no chance that a political case will be made to impeach Obama, not because there is no case, but simply because the Republican Party has utterly failed to protect the constitution of the United States against progressive inroads. Whether this trend can be reversed is doubtful; but it certainly can not be reversed when the GOP as an institution not only fails to articulate a vision but seems to want to join the progressive cause in marginalizing those who want to defend that constitution.
4/17/2014
Putin’s grand scheme bommerangs back to hit U.S. politics
Via-My article in The Brenner Brief
Putin’s grand scheme dividing his biggest threat,the GOP
CREDIT: Wiki Commons
As the Ukraine situation devolves into an uncertain future it is having the effect of clarifying the U.S. domestic political picture. By highlighting the Republican Party’s divide on future American foreign policy, Russia’s intervention into Ukraine has pit two strong elements of the GOP coalition against one another.
The two factions, the so-called neocons who have in the past held great sway over Republican Party policy and politics and the rising power within the GOP of the more libertarian elements on the right, have not as yet reached a means for peaceful coexistence and the Ukrainian crisis highlights this divide. Unlike the schism which has been created between the “establishment” and the grassroots “Tea Party” element of the GOP this foreign policy divide cuts across all elements of the Republican Party landscape. In 2010 as the Tea Party swept the Republicans into power in the House it was also primarily responsible for sending two of the GOP’s rising stars to the U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul from Kentucky. Although Rubio’s light has dimmed somewhat with the grassroots due to his foray into the immigration quagmire, he is still seen by most on the right as an articulate spokesman for individual freedom and a champion for constitutional conservatism. Rand Paul has spent much time and effort in an attempt to reach out and draw new constituencies into the GOP fold, primarily the youth, which he hopes to attract to his libertarian philosophies and principles. Both Senators are considered not only to be rising stars in the Republican Party, but also potential 2016 presidential candidates. These two “Tea Party” senators though have vastly different views on the Ukrainian situation. Rubio put out a Press Release on the crisiswhere among other points he recommended:
…. We should also stand with Ukraine as the interim government attempts to deal with these provocations. This includes immediately providing the lethal assistance they requested weeks ago. We also need to take measures to reassure our allies in Central and Eastern Europe by deploying more alliance assets to their territories to reinforce our NATO commitments to their security.
Rubio’s statements on and prescriptions for the Ukrainian situation virtually mirror those of Senator John McCain (R-AZ) perhaps this generationsleading spokesman for the neocon viewpoint. Given his background as the son of Cuban immigrants, it is not surprising that he would have a more aggressive stance on international matters as it relates to foreign tyrants. When Senator Tom Harkins (D-IA) recently took to the Senate floor and gave a speech praising the Cuban healthcare system, Rubio responded with an impassioned and well received rebuttal showing not only his gifts as an orator but his sincere passion in regards to tyrannical foreign regimes. At the same time that Rubio is promoting the Right’s typical response to foreign interventions and bullying by tyrants such as Putin, Rand Paul is counselling what for the GOP is a new direction in foreign policy. Paul has put out only one press release on Ukraine, which in itself is telling, and that was back on February 28, 2014. In the statement the Kentucky Senator took a more “internationalist” tone calling on the Russians to remember “that stability and territorial integrity go hand in hand with prosperity.” Since his initial formal response, Paul has made statements that indicate that he has absolutely no desire to be drawn into what he sees as a European problem but would use every non-military tool at the United States disposal to punish Russia. In an op-ed for Time he set out what a Paul Administration would do in response to Russia’s aggression, though slightly more aggressive than the Obama Administration’s feeble response, it is far from the cold warriormentality which has dominated GOP policies for the past several decades. Perhaps most telling in his opinion piece he attempts to remind his Tea Party base what America’s biggest enemy is, and it is not Putin:
America is a world leader, but we should not be its policeman or ATM. At the end of the day, I still agree with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen — the greatest threat to America’s security is our national debt. Russia, the Middle East or any other troubled part of the world should never make us forget that the U.S. is broke. We weaken our security and defenses when we print money out of thin air or borrow from other countries to allegedly support our own.
Two “Tea Party” Senators with different views of how the United States should proceed in what still is a hostile world in the twenty-first century. The foreign policy debate between the factions was ongoing but under the surface of other policy matters, Putin through his aggression has just brought it to the surface. It is not that Marco Rubio does not believe in fiscal responsibility or that Rand Paul does not believe in a strong national defense both men believe in both. What this particular schism brings to the fore of Republican politics is more about priorities and tactics than divisions. The fact that some are attempting to paint either man as somehow not “right” enough because of their differing priorities is actually counterproductive. both men represent views which reflect their different backgrounds and has nothing to do with either man’s commitment to the constitution or the nation. Personally I might prefer one man over the other as President, but I have no doubt that either man would lead the nation in a different and better direction than it is heading now and upon that there ought to be no debate on the right.
10/01/2013
The ObamaCare fight is just beginning
Via-New York Post
By Rich Lowry
Democrats are affronted that Republicans have made ObamaCare a focus of this fall’s fiscal fights. They should get used to it.
Even if Democrats deflect efforts to defund or delay the law in coming weeks, the fight will go on. Republican opposition is for the long haul, and it should be.
Even as the exchanges for individuals to purchase insurance get up and running, ObamaCare is still in play. It has a legitimacy problem. It had one before it passed, when it was kept afloat through gross special deals, and it has one still, when it is manifestly failing to live up to the president’s salesmanship on its behalf. There’s a reason that usually we don’t pass major social changes lacking popular support on party-line votes — it is a formula for conflict rather than consensus.
Having done the deed, Democrats now expect Republicans to salute smartly, accept “the law of the land” and suggest minor improvements that Democrats will, in their wisdom, decide whether or not to adopt. In other words, they recommend the acquiescence of surrender.
If this were a consistent principle rather than opportunistic advice, Democrats would have been content to leave “don’t ask, don’t tell” in place and never would have agitated to repeal the Bush tax cuts, out of deference to duly constituted policy and law.
Nearly four years after ObamaCare passed, the coalition against it has expanded, not shrunk. The unions are now excoriating the law in terms that once would have been reserved for Republican floor speeches. In his filibuster, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz repeatedly quoted a letter from Teamsters leader Jim Hoffa attacking ObamaCare as a clear and present threat to the middle class. When House Republicans voted to delay the individual mandate a few weeks ago, 35 Democrats joined them; Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, announced his support for a delay just last week.
Pew Research has found disapproval of the health-care law at an all-time high in its polling. CNN’s latest survey has disapproval at 57 percent and approval at 38. Health care, a core Democratic strength for decades, is becoming a liability. A New York Times poll found that more people disapprove of President Barack Obama on health care than approve by a 54-to-40 margin. Trust for Republicans and Democrats on health care is about even, according to the Pew poll.
The problems with the health law are invariably described by the president and his allies as “glitches,” or harmless technical snafus that no one should worry about. But the law suffers from basic design flaws beyond the question of whether the Obama administration can get its software to work. It depends on young, healthy people buying insurance even as it reduces their incentive to do so; it encourages employers to dump workers off their current insurance; it suppresses full-time work, through the employer mandate; in 10 years, the law still leaves 30 million people uninsured.
None of this makes for a stable, widely accepted new dispensation in American health care. On the right, ironically enough, it is Cruz and his band of fellow defunders who are the defeatists on the law’s medium-term prospects. They argue that unless it is stopped before Jan. 1, when subsidies begin to flow through the exchanges, it will be an unalterable part of the American landscape.
But at first only about 2 percent of people will receive subsidies, which are funneled through insurers rather than given to individuals directly. The subsidies themselves shouldn’t be enough to save ObamaCare if it is failing.
The law’s fate over the longer term matters because it is almost certain to survive the immediate confrontations over the so-called continued resolution and the debt ceiling. It will be determined over the course of the next two elections, when Republicans will continue to pound away — rightly — over the sighs of annoyed impatience of the left and the media. Resistance is not futile.
By Rich Lowry
Democrats are affronted that Republicans have made ObamaCare a focus of this fall’s fiscal fights. They should get used to it.
Even if Democrats deflect efforts to defund or delay the law in coming weeks, the fight will go on. Republican opposition is for the long haul, and it should be.
Even as the exchanges for individuals to purchase insurance get up and running, ObamaCare is still in play. It has a legitimacy problem. It had one before it passed, when it was kept afloat through gross special deals, and it has one still, when it is manifestly failing to live up to the president’s salesmanship on its behalf. There’s a reason that usually we don’t pass major social changes lacking popular support on party-line votes — it is a formula for conflict rather than consensus.
Having done the deed, Democrats now expect Republicans to salute smartly, accept “the law of the land” and suggest minor improvements that Democrats will, in their wisdom, decide whether or not to adopt. In other words, they recommend the acquiescence of surrender.
If this were a consistent principle rather than opportunistic advice, Democrats would have been content to leave “don’t ask, don’t tell” in place and never would have agitated to repeal the Bush tax cuts, out of deference to duly constituted policy and law.
Nearly four years after ObamaCare passed, the coalition against it has expanded, not shrunk. The unions are now excoriating the law in terms that once would have been reserved for Republican floor speeches. In his filibuster, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz repeatedly quoted a letter from Teamsters leader Jim Hoffa attacking ObamaCare as a clear and present threat to the middle class. When House Republicans voted to delay the individual mandate a few weeks ago, 35 Democrats joined them; Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, announced his support for a delay just last week.
Pew Research has found disapproval of the health-care law at an all-time high in its polling. CNN’s latest survey has disapproval at 57 percent and approval at 38. Health care, a core Democratic strength for decades, is becoming a liability. A New York Times poll found that more people disapprove of President Barack Obama on health care than approve by a 54-to-40 margin. Trust for Republicans and Democrats on health care is about even, according to the Pew poll.
The problems with the health law are invariably described by the president and his allies as “glitches,” or harmless technical snafus that no one should worry about. But the law suffers from basic design flaws beyond the question of whether the Obama administration can get its software to work. It depends on young, healthy people buying insurance even as it reduces their incentive to do so; it encourages employers to dump workers off their current insurance; it suppresses full-time work, through the employer mandate; in 10 years, the law still leaves 30 million people uninsured.
None of this makes for a stable, widely accepted new dispensation in American health care. On the right, ironically enough, it is Cruz and his band of fellow defunders who are the defeatists on the law’s medium-term prospects. They argue that unless it is stopped before Jan. 1, when subsidies begin to flow through the exchanges, it will be an unalterable part of the American landscape.
But at first only about 2 percent of people will receive subsidies, which are funneled through insurers rather than given to individuals directly. The subsidies themselves shouldn’t be enough to save ObamaCare if it is failing.
The law’s fate over the longer term matters because it is almost certain to survive the immediate confrontations over the so-called continued resolution and the debt ceiling. It will be determined over the course of the next two elections, when Republicans will continue to pound away — rightly — over the sighs of annoyed impatience of the left and the media. Resistance is not futile.
9/18/2013
Obama Goes to War
Via-WSJ
The President finds an enemy he's willing to bomb—Republicans.
President Obama likes to invoke his predecessors in the Oval Office, as all Presidents do, but in one sense he is unlike the others: Presidents traditionally try to reach a rough domestic consensus if they are faced with going to war abroad. Mr. Obama wants to smooth everything over abroad so he can get back to his favorite pursuit of declaring war at home.
At least that's how it's gone the last week, as Mr. Obama all but wrapped up that ghastly business in Syria and turned his attention to the real enemy—Republicans. Backed by the good offices of Vladimir Putin and the assurances of Bashar Assad, United Nations inspectors will now remove Syria's chemical weapons from the battlefield. Congress doesn't even have to vote on it, and the American people can forget the recent unpleasantness. Peace in our time.
Which means it's now safe for Mr. Obama to begin the war he really wants to fight. The President spoke Monday afternoon at the White House in remarks pegged to the fifth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the financial panic of 2008. But the financial crisis was merely an excuse for Mr. Obama's real purpose, which was to demand unconditional surrender from his domestic opposition.Obama Goes to War
The President finds an enemy he's willing to bomb—Republicans.
Mr. Obama assailed Republicans for an "ideological agenda" that he called "the height of irresponsibility." Among other crimes against humanity, he said the GOP refuses to abandon the budget restraint of the sequester spending cuts or to greet the Affordable Care Act with flowers and sweets.
"Are they really willing to hurt people just to score political points? I hope not," Mr. Obama said, transparently suggesting that they do want to hurt people. At least he didn't accuse them of using chemical weapons, but when it comes to stopping atrocities like opposition to his domestic agenda, let him be clear: He doesn't do pinpricks.
Mr. Obama did at least once or twice suggest he's willing to compromise, sort of. He said he'll call off his domestic strikes if Republicans agree to a framework for political and fiscal disarmament, including another tax increase on top of the one extracted as recently as January.
"As far as the budget goes," the President warned, "it's time for responsible Republicans who share these goals—and there are a number of folks out there who I think are decent folks, I've got some disagreements with them on some issues, but I think genuinely want to see the economy grow and want what's best for the American people—it's time for those Republicans to step up and they've got to decide what they want to prioritize."
With malice for all, and charity toward none. Perhaps to honor Lincoln's memory, Mr. Obama will suspend habeas corpus for those indecent folks who genuinely want what's worst for Americans.
There really has never been anything like this in the White House, at least not in the modern era. Ronald Reagan compromised on budget issues with a Democratic majority rather than trigger a debt limit crisis. George H.W. Bush signed onto a tax increase in 1990 in part so he could get Democratic support for the brewing Gulf War. Bill Clinton struck a budget deal and worked with Republicans on foreign policy. And facing a new Democratic majority in 2007, George W. Bush signed onto a fiscal "stimulus" and rotten energy bill well before the financial crisis compelled bipartisan votes.
Mr. Obama declares that he won't even deign to negotiate over an extension of the debt limit, which expires within a month or two. And he carpet-bombs Republicans only two weeks after House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor took a political risk and declared they'd vote for the President's Syrian war resolution against the views of most of their own Members.
The evidence suggests that Mr. Obama wants a showdown with Congress that ends with a government shutdown or a dance with default. He can then mount an offensive against Republicans that will rally his base, which soured on his Syrian plans and vetoed Larry Summers for the Federal Reserve. With his domestic agenda dead on Capitol Hill, Mr. Obama may also figure that stigmatizing Republicans over a shutdown-default crisis is the only way that Democrats can retake the House in 2014.
The question is how well all of this will play with a war-weary public. Mr. Obama is no longer the fresh young idealist President, and Americans are beginning to figure out his methods. Like Assad and Mr. Putin, they may conclude that he's no longer a President whose words they can take seriously.
The President finds an enemy he's willing to bomb—Republicans.
President Obama likes to invoke his predecessors in the Oval Office, as all Presidents do, but in one sense he is unlike the others: Presidents traditionally try to reach a rough domestic consensus if they are faced with going to war abroad. Mr. Obama wants to smooth everything over abroad so he can get back to his favorite pursuit of declaring war at home.
At least that's how it's gone the last week, as Mr. Obama all but wrapped up that ghastly business in Syria and turned his attention to the real enemy—Republicans. Backed by the good offices of Vladimir Putin and the assurances of Bashar Assad, United Nations inspectors will now remove Syria's chemical weapons from the battlefield. Congress doesn't even have to vote on it, and the American people can forget the recent unpleasantness. Peace in our time.
Which means it's now safe for Mr. Obama to begin the war he really wants to fight. The President spoke Monday afternoon at the White House in remarks pegged to the fifth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the financial panic of 2008. But the financial crisis was merely an excuse for Mr. Obama's real purpose, which was to demand unconditional surrender from his domestic opposition.Obama Goes to War
The President finds an enemy he's willing to bomb—Republicans.
Mr. Obama assailed Republicans for an "ideological agenda" that he called "the height of irresponsibility." Among other crimes against humanity, he said the GOP refuses to abandon the budget restraint of the sequester spending cuts or to greet the Affordable Care Act with flowers and sweets.
"Are they really willing to hurt people just to score political points? I hope not," Mr. Obama said, transparently suggesting that they do want to hurt people. At least he didn't accuse them of using chemical weapons, but when it comes to stopping atrocities like opposition to his domestic agenda, let him be clear: He doesn't do pinpricks.
Mr. Obama did at least once or twice suggest he's willing to compromise, sort of. He said he'll call off his domestic strikes if Republicans agree to a framework for political and fiscal disarmament, including another tax increase on top of the one extracted as recently as January.
"As far as the budget goes," the President warned, "it's time for responsible Republicans who share these goals—and there are a number of folks out there who I think are decent folks, I've got some disagreements with them on some issues, but I think genuinely want to see the economy grow and want what's best for the American people—it's time for those Republicans to step up and they've got to decide what they want to prioritize."
With malice for all, and charity toward none. Perhaps to honor Lincoln's memory, Mr. Obama will suspend habeas corpus for those indecent folks who genuinely want what's worst for Americans.
There really has never been anything like this in the White House, at least not in the modern era. Ronald Reagan compromised on budget issues with a Democratic majority rather than trigger a debt limit crisis. George H.W. Bush signed onto a tax increase in 1990 in part so he could get Democratic support for the brewing Gulf War. Bill Clinton struck a budget deal and worked with Republicans on foreign policy. And facing a new Democratic majority in 2007, George W. Bush signed onto a fiscal "stimulus" and rotten energy bill well before the financial crisis compelled bipartisan votes.
Mr. Obama declares that he won't even deign to negotiate over an extension of the debt limit, which expires within a month or two. And he carpet-bombs Republicans only two weeks after House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor took a political risk and declared they'd vote for the President's Syrian war resolution against the views of most of their own Members.
The evidence suggests that Mr. Obama wants a showdown with Congress that ends with a government shutdown or a dance with default. He can then mount an offensive against Republicans that will rally his base, which soured on his Syrian plans and vetoed Larry Summers for the Federal Reserve. With his domestic agenda dead on Capitol Hill, Mr. Obama may also figure that stigmatizing Republicans over a shutdown-default crisis is the only way that Democrats can retake the House in 2014.
The question is how well all of this will play with a war-weary public. Mr. Obama is no longer the fresh young idealist President, and Americans are beginning to figure out his methods. Like Assad and Mr. Putin, they may conclude that he's no longer a President whose words they can take seriously.
9/02/2013
A vote of no confidence is in order
Via-WAPO
By Ed Rogers
What with our president having received the Nobel Peace Prize and leading us in a pivot to Asia, I guess the White House wants to pretend that the humiliating debacle America is suffering — in front of the world — isn’t happening. What’s wrong with asking Congress for authorization to go to war? The Obama apologencia will tell us it is what the president meant to do all along. They will tell us things are going according to plan. What’s the rush? But no, for the first time ever, an American president is saying, “The buck does NOT stop here.”
The president is a spent force, both domestically and internationally. Congress should help by voting to cut our losses; it should resist opening the door to the uncertain consequences of a military campaign conducted, without conviction or clear purpose, by this commander in chief. If Republicans can limit the president’s authority to wander and blunder on the world stage, there is a moral obligation to do so.
Of course Syria should be viciously punished for using chemical weapons, but who trusts this president to do so in such a way that also sends a clear message to Iran? No one does. Why would they? Better to leave Iran with a modicum of doubt than let them witness any more of the tepid uncertainty, lack of conviction or absence of moral clarity from President Obama.
The only thing worse than no response from America is a floundering response, so Congress should stop it while they can. We don’t need to go through the half-hearted lobbying effort in Congress, which will just underscore the incompetence and incapabilities of this administration. Republicans should vote to end this disaster now. A vote of no confidence is in order.
The problem is that we have serious problems that require an able president both at home and abroad. It is too soon for our president to be a marginalized lame duck. Doing nothing is one thing, but doing harm by not properly wielding the power a president holds is another.
The only possible remedy — and one that is probably impossible for this president’s ideology or ego to allow — would be for him to demand that Congress return early from their summer break, deliver a prime-time speech before a joint session, win the vote and then unleash a blistering punishment. This is probably the only way to salvage some of the president’s credibility and give Iran pause.
Unless the members of the national security team who surround Obama are so addicted to the personal grandeur and perks of office, surely someone will resign rather than be a part of the humiliation and harm this president is doing.
It is too early to take today’s headlines and extrapolate out to the next election; and national security issues don’t drive votes. I’ve resisted making 2014 election predictions, except to acknowledge that the natural midterm political cycle in 2014 favors Republicans. Fourteen months is a lifetime in politics blah blah blah, but the tectonic plates are beginning to shift and the first sign of a wave election could be forming. If the big issues of peace and prosperity are going to matter, what do the Democrats have to say for themselves?
What aspect of the economy instills confidence — never mind enthusiasm — for the future? Where in the world is America stronger as a result of the Obama presidency? Nothing is getting better for the Democrats.
What with our president having received the Nobel Peace Prize and leading us in a pivot to Asia, I guess the White House wants to pretend that the humiliating debacle America is suffering — in front of the world — isn’t happening. What’s wrong with asking Congress for authorization to go to war? The Obama apologencia will tell us it is what the president meant to do all along. They will tell us things are going according to plan. What’s the rush? But no, for the first time ever, an American president is saying, “The buck does NOT stop here.”
The president is a spent force, both domestically and internationally. Congress should help by voting to cut our losses; it should resist opening the door to the uncertain consequences of a military campaign conducted, without conviction or clear purpose, by this commander in chief. If Republicans can limit the president’s authority to wander and blunder on the world stage, there is a moral obligation to do so.
Of course Syria should be viciously punished for using chemical weapons, but who trusts this president to do so in such a way that also sends a clear message to Iran? No one does. Why would they? Better to leave Iran with a modicum of doubt than let them witness any more of the tepid uncertainty, lack of conviction or absence of moral clarity from President Obama.
The only thing worse than no response from America is a floundering response, so Congress should stop it while they can. We don’t need to go through the half-hearted lobbying effort in Congress, which will just underscore the incompetence and incapabilities of this administration. Republicans should vote to end this disaster now. A vote of no confidence is in order.
The problem is that we have serious problems that require an able president both at home and abroad. It is too soon for our president to be a marginalized lame duck. Doing nothing is one thing, but doing harm by not properly wielding the power a president holds is another.
The only possible remedy — and one that is probably impossible for this president’s ideology or ego to allow — would be for him to demand that Congress return early from their summer break, deliver a prime-time speech before a joint session, win the vote and then unleash a blistering punishment. This is probably the only way to salvage some of the president’s credibility and give Iran pause.
Unless the members of the national security team who surround Obama are so addicted to the personal grandeur and perks of office, surely someone will resign rather than be a part of the humiliation and harm this president is doing.
It is too early to take today’s headlines and extrapolate out to the next election; and national security issues don’t drive votes. I’ve resisted making 2014 election predictions, except to acknowledge that the natural midterm political cycle in 2014 favors Republicans. Fourteen months is a lifetime in politics blah blah blah, but the tectonic plates are beginning to shift and the first sign of a wave election could be forming. If the big issues of peace and prosperity are going to matter, what do the Democrats have to say for themselves?
What aspect of the economy instills confidence — never mind enthusiasm — for the future? Where in the world is America stronger as a result of the Obama presidency? Nothing is getting better for the Democrats.
8/08/2013
Republicans, stick to your principles
By Craig Shirley and Newt Gingrich
(CNN) -- As Republicans wrestle with how to oppose President Barack Obama, what to do about Obamacare and how to compare the value of fights based on principle versus fights based on clever calculation, there may be some lessons from one of the darkest periods of Republican history.
Watergate was a slow-motion disaster for the Republican Party. Richard Nixon, who had just won one of the largest majorities in American history in 1972, was slowly being exposed and driven from power.
At the same time, it was discovered that Vice President Spiro Agnew was illegally taking bribes. He was forced to resign. That resignation led to the first vice presidential appointment, that of the House Republican leader, Rep. Gerald Ford.
Then Nixon resigned, leading to the second vice presidential appointment, former Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York. That appealed to liberals but enraged conservatives. President Ford then pardoned Nixon, leading to a further firestorm of outrage. The Republicans were badly defeated in the 1974 congressional elections. The election of President Jimmy Carter finished the defeat of the Republican Party.
Republicans were shattered by their sudden collapse after the enormous 1972 victory. Republican leaders in Congress were shaken by the defeat of so many of their friends, many after two decades or more in office. In many ways, America was a one-party system by January 1977, and the Democrats seemed totally dominant.
The Democratic Party housed liberals and conservatives, agrarians and urban intellectuals, men, women, young, old, blacks, whites, all creeds, dominated all regions and ruled all debate in America.
The Republican Party housed a small group of exhausted defeatists.
7/29/2013
Boehner’s Next Retreat
Via-American Spectator
By JED BABBIN
A way of political life that’s killing Republicans.
The headline writers were beset by hysteria last week at the prospect of another showdown between Congress and the White House on Obamacare, the budget ceiling, and a possible shutdown of the federal government.
The Hill published the headline, “Government shutdown looms over Obamacare.” Not to be out done, Politico proclaimed, “Fiscal Armageddon could remake Hill in 2014 elections.”
A shutdown is not out of the question. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is leading an effort to block any spending measure that funds Obamacare, regardless of the danger of Republicans being blamed for shutting down the government. Some 64 Republicans have signed a letter to House Speaker John Boehner asking him not to bring any funding bill to the floor that includes Obamacare.
That letter, circulated by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), doesn’t include a promise of the signers to vote against any such bill. Which deprives the letter of any significance. Mike Lee’s effort was praised by “moderates” such as Illinois’ Mark Kirk, who later withdrew his support. (John McCain is, of course, opposed to Lee’s move.)
That’s only one of the reasons it was really hard not to be cynical last Tuesday when Speaker Boehner said, “We’re not going to raise the debt ceiling without real cuts in spending. It’s as simple as that.” He also said that the right path for the House to follow was the so-called “Boehner rule,” which requires any debt limit hike to be offset by spending cuts in an equal amount. The problem with the “Boehner rule” is that it’s never been followed.
By JED BABBIN
A way of political life that’s killing Republicans.
The headline writers were beset by hysteria last week at the prospect of another showdown between Congress and the White House on Obamacare, the budget ceiling, and a possible shutdown of the federal government.
The Hill published the headline, “Government shutdown looms over Obamacare.” Not to be out done, Politico proclaimed, “Fiscal Armageddon could remake Hill in 2014 elections.”
A shutdown is not out of the question. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is leading an effort to block any spending measure that funds Obamacare, regardless of the danger of Republicans being blamed for shutting down the government. Some 64 Republicans have signed a letter to House Speaker John Boehner asking him not to bring any funding bill to the floor that includes Obamacare.
That letter, circulated by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), doesn’t include a promise of the signers to vote against any such bill. Which deprives the letter of any significance. Mike Lee’s effort was praised by “moderates” such as Illinois’ Mark Kirk, who later withdrew his support. (John McCain is, of course, opposed to Lee’s move.)
That’s only one of the reasons it was really hard not to be cynical last Tuesday when Speaker Boehner said, “We’re not going to raise the debt ceiling without real cuts in spending. It’s as simple as that.” He also said that the right path for the House to follow was the so-called “Boehner rule,” which requires any debt limit hike to be offset by spending cuts in an equal amount. The problem with the “Boehner rule” is that it’s never been followed.
6/18/2013
GOP needs action, not navel-gazing
Via-Politico
By GOV. BOBBY JINDAL
We’ve had enough. Yes, we just lost our second straight presidential election to Barack Obama. Yes, losing is painful and has consequences. Yes, when you lose, you make adjustments. Enough already. Let’s get on with it.
Yes, we have plenty of changes to make. I’ve offered a list of seven ideas for change, former Gov. Jeb Bush has offered substantive thoughts, as have Senators Rubio, Johnson, Paul, and others. The points these gentlemen have made are sensible and merit serious discussion. And it should go without saying that we should continually challenge our own assumptions and evaluate our standing.
But excessive navel gazing leads to paralysis. At present it looks as if the entire Republican party needs to go to counseling. It’s really getting embarrassing, all these public professions of feelings of inadequacy. Every day it seems another jilted high-placed Republican in Washington is confessing to the voters; “It’s not you, it’s me…”
Republican political correctness is all the rage, and it’s all roughly the same: we need to stop being conservative… we need to abandon our principles (at least the ones that don’t poll well)… we need to let the smart guys in Washington pick our candidates…we need big data and analytics so we can optimize… we need to be more libertarian…we need to endorse abortion…we need fewer debates…and the list goes on.
The overall level of panic and apology from the operative class in our party is absurd and unmerited. It’s time to stop the bedwetting.
Let’s remember a few things:
1) We have 30 Governors
2) We took control of the House in 2010 and held it in 2012
3) Obama ran a tremendous campaign in 2008, and our outgoing president was unpopular
4) The just completed presidential campaign strategy of playing it safe and assuming a poor economy would win it for us was an obvious mistake.
How about we take all of this energy being spent on autopsies and focus it on painting a picture for the American public, particularly for young people, of what a free and prosperous American future will look like with smart conservative policies.
No more self-analysis; we’ve had our catharsis. The season for navel gazing has passed.
Let’s stop defeating ourselves, get on offense, and go kick the other guys around. If you’ve followed the news over the past month, they are certainly asking for it. We are the conservative party in America — deal with it. We have a lot of dissenting voices. So what? Deal with it. The American public waxes and wanes. Fine. It will wax again soon enough. Deal with it, and start fighting for our principles instead of against them, so we can be in position to create the next wave.
At some point, the American public is going to revolt against the nanny state and the leftward march of this president. I don’t know when the tipping point will come, but I believe it will come soon.
Why?
Because the left wants: The government to explode; to pay everyone; to hire everyone; they believe that money grows on trees; the earth is flat; the industrial age, factory-style government is a cool new thing; debts don’t have to be repaid; people of faith are ignorant and uneducated; unborn babies don’t matter; pornography is fine; traditional marriage is discriminatory; 32 oz. sodas are evil; red meat should be rationed; rich people are evil unless they are from Hollywood or are liberal Democrats; the Israelis are unreasonable; trans-fat must be stopped; kids trapped in failing schools should be patient; wild weather is a new thing; moral standards are passé; government run health care is high quality; the IRS should violate our constitutional rights; reporters should be spied on; Benghazi was handled well; the Second Amendment is outdated; and the First one has some problems too.
Their philosophy does not work and it got our nation into the mess it’s in.
Eventually Americans will rise up against this new era of big government and this new reign of politically correct terror. In the meantime Republicans — hold fast, get smarter, get disciplined, get on offense, and put on your big boy pants.
Bobby Jindal is the governor of Louisiana.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/bobby-jindal-opinion-gop-needs-action-92933.html#ixzz2WZOQQOiV
By GOV. BOBBY JINDAL
We’ve had enough. Yes, we just lost our second straight presidential election to Barack Obama. Yes, losing is painful and has consequences. Yes, when you lose, you make adjustments. Enough already. Let’s get on with it.
Yes, we have plenty of changes to make. I’ve offered a list of seven ideas for change, former Gov. Jeb Bush has offered substantive thoughts, as have Senators Rubio, Johnson, Paul, and others. The points these gentlemen have made are sensible and merit serious discussion. And it should go without saying that we should continually challenge our own assumptions and evaluate our standing.
But excessive navel gazing leads to paralysis. At present it looks as if the entire Republican party needs to go to counseling. It’s really getting embarrassing, all these public professions of feelings of inadequacy. Every day it seems another jilted high-placed Republican in Washington is confessing to the voters; “It’s not you, it’s me…”
Republican political correctness is all the rage, and it’s all roughly the same: we need to stop being conservative… we need to abandon our principles (at least the ones that don’t poll well)… we need to let the smart guys in Washington pick our candidates…we need big data and analytics so we can optimize… we need to be more libertarian…we need to endorse abortion…we need fewer debates…and the list goes on.
The overall level of panic and apology from the operative class in our party is absurd and unmerited. It’s time to stop the bedwetting.
Let’s remember a few things:
1) We have 30 Governors
2) We took control of the House in 2010 and held it in 2012
3) Obama ran a tremendous campaign in 2008, and our outgoing president was unpopular
4) The just completed presidential campaign strategy of playing it safe and assuming a poor economy would win it for us was an obvious mistake.
How about we take all of this energy being spent on autopsies and focus it on painting a picture for the American public, particularly for young people, of what a free and prosperous American future will look like with smart conservative policies.
No more self-analysis; we’ve had our catharsis. The season for navel gazing has passed.
Let’s stop defeating ourselves, get on offense, and go kick the other guys around. If you’ve followed the news over the past month, they are certainly asking for it. We are the conservative party in America — deal with it. We have a lot of dissenting voices. So what? Deal with it. The American public waxes and wanes. Fine. It will wax again soon enough. Deal with it, and start fighting for our principles instead of against them, so we can be in position to create the next wave.
At some point, the American public is going to revolt against the nanny state and the leftward march of this president. I don’t know when the tipping point will come, but I believe it will come soon.
Why?
Because the left wants: The government to explode; to pay everyone; to hire everyone; they believe that money grows on trees; the earth is flat; the industrial age, factory-style government is a cool new thing; debts don’t have to be repaid; people of faith are ignorant and uneducated; unborn babies don’t matter; pornography is fine; traditional marriage is discriminatory; 32 oz. sodas are evil; red meat should be rationed; rich people are evil unless they are from Hollywood or are liberal Democrats; the Israelis are unreasonable; trans-fat must be stopped; kids trapped in failing schools should be patient; wild weather is a new thing; moral standards are passé; government run health care is high quality; the IRS should violate our constitutional rights; reporters should be spied on; Benghazi was handled well; the Second Amendment is outdated; and the First one has some problems too.
Their philosophy does not work and it got our nation into the mess it’s in.
Eventually Americans will rise up against this new era of big government and this new reign of politically correct terror. In the meantime Republicans — hold fast, get smarter, get disciplined, get on offense, and put on your big boy pants.
Bobby Jindal is the governor of Louisiana.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/bobby-jindal-opinion-gop-needs-action-92933.html#ixzz2WZOQQOiV
3/28/2013
Such Touching Concern
Via-American Spectator
by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr
WASHINGTON — The American left cares so much for humanity that it even expends copious draughts of compassion toward us, toward you and me, toward suave, dégagé conservatives. The left’s members really fret over how elements of the “extreme right” are undermining the Republican Party, consigning it to oblivion.
The latest moral colossus to perform this exemplary task is Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, but there are many more from all the precincts of the left. This past weekend I even detected this concern for us from the pollster, Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center. Writing a piece on the future of the Republican Party, he expressed his concern that advocates of “staunch conservatism” have left the Republican Party “estranged from America.” If moderate Republicans do not smarten up and presumably rid the party of these “staunch conservatives,” the party will go so far to the right that it will be replicating the political suicide of Senator George McGovern and his McGovernite zealots back in 1972.
If you are old enough you may remember how in 1972 the left was apoplectic that McGovern was leading the Democratic Party out into the wilderness. You do not recall it that way? You have forgotten? It did not seem like that at the time? The left in 1972 was full of its usual brag and bounce that crazy George was on the right side of history, and victory was only months away. Is Mr. Kohut mistaken?
I think he is. Actually, this grave concern by the left over the projects of the “staunch conservatives” within the Republican Party is one vast sham. A similar concern by the left for the extremist tilt of the Democratic Party is never apparent, and the reason is obvious. The concern does not exist. Yet the Democratic Party over the years has, for a certitude, gone left, far left. Review the evidence. On issue after issue — from social policy to fiscal policy — the Democrats have moved leftward. With the help of their amanuenses in the media the left is never forced to talk about it, but it is a fact. With the leftward rush of the party proclaimed in the Prophet Obama’s State of the Union Address, it is the Democrats who are extreme. Their day of reckoning will come on November 4, 2014.
by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr
WASHINGTON — The American left cares so much for humanity that it even expends copious draughts of compassion toward us, toward you and me, toward suave, dégagé conservatives. The left’s members really fret over how elements of the “extreme right” are undermining the Republican Party, consigning it to oblivion.
The latest moral colossus to perform this exemplary task is Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, but there are many more from all the precincts of the left. This past weekend I even detected this concern for us from the pollster, Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center. Writing a piece on the future of the Republican Party, he expressed his concern that advocates of “staunch conservatism” have left the Republican Party “estranged from America.” If moderate Republicans do not smarten up and presumably rid the party of these “staunch conservatives,” the party will go so far to the right that it will be replicating the political suicide of Senator George McGovern and his McGovernite zealots back in 1972.
If you are old enough you may remember how in 1972 the left was apoplectic that McGovern was leading the Democratic Party out into the wilderness. You do not recall it that way? You have forgotten? It did not seem like that at the time? The left in 1972 was full of its usual brag and bounce that crazy George was on the right side of history, and victory was only months away. Is Mr. Kohut mistaken?
I think he is. Actually, this grave concern by the left over the projects of the “staunch conservatives” within the Republican Party is one vast sham. A similar concern by the left for the extremist tilt of the Democratic Party is never apparent, and the reason is obvious. The concern does not exist. Yet the Democratic Party over the years has, for a certitude, gone left, far left. Review the evidence. On issue after issue — from social policy to fiscal policy — the Democrats have moved leftward. With the help of their amanuenses in the media the left is never forced to talk about it, but it is a fact. With the leftward rush of the party proclaimed in the Prophet Obama’s State of the Union Address, it is the Democrats who are extreme. Their day of reckoning will come on November 4, 2014.
3/25/2013
Grand Old Opportunity
Via-Weekly Standard<Yuval Levin
As they seek to revive their political fortunes in the wake of last year’s disastrous election, Republicans risk a dangerous misunderstanding: Since Democrats did well last November and Republicans generally didn’t, some on the right have concluded that the Democrats must be onto some secret formula for success in an altered political environment, and that the task for Republicans is to find elements of their opponents’ agenda or style they can comfortably co-opt or uncomfortably accept.
There is precedent for such a response to political troubles. In the late 1980s, a group of centrist Democrats concluded that their party had to adopt the essentials of Ronald Reagan’s economic vision if it was to appeal to voters again, and their efforts ultimately bore fruit with Bill Clinton’s election.
But the analogy to that era understates both the challenge the GOP now faces and the opportunity it confronts. The fact is that the public is not much happier with the Democrats than with the Republicans, and that neither party has offered a compelling policy agenda for addressing America’s challenges in this era of stagnation and uncertainty.
3/09/2013
Pulling the levers
One of the most disappointing aspects of the Obamacare tragedy was when Chief Justice Roberts found it constitutional under congress's taxing authority after Obama and the Democrats had spent months steadfastly denying that it was a tax. By doing this Roberts was basically saying that principles do not matter in the legislative process. He confirmed every American's most cynical view of government, politicians lie and get away with it.
But in a statement after his wretched ruling he made a point which not only justifies his ruling, it in fact points to where we are as a nation.
“We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders.”...In other words if the nation is so disconnected from the political process that they would elect people who give them policies and programs that they do not want, then they deserve what they get, and he is correct. It all goes back to the old saying that a nation gets the government it deserves.
“Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”(emphasis added)
Obama and the new Democratic Party, meaning Progressives, have "gamed the system" to get what they want and the American people as a whole are so disconnected or too cynical of the political process to recognize that they are being enslaved. Under the banner of progress, America is being pulled backwards towards a totalitarian state.
Why are they able to do this? We talk about the education system and the popular culture being taken over by the statist forces and this is indeed a a major factor. But there is also another piece of the puzzle which is seldom discussed. It has to do with the very nature of the opposing philosophies.
In the United States you basically have two opposing camps. In one is the liberal/progressive philosophy of big government top down governance. This is opposed by the conservative/libertarian philosophy of limited government and the promotion of individual liberty.
This division is well understood but what is seldom mentioned is that a philosophy based around government control is probably going to be better at manipulating the levers of government than a philosophy based on disdain for government control. In other words the statist win because it is in their very nature to want to pull the levers, while we the proponents of individual liberty abhor the levers.
Recently we saw a perfect example of this, at the personal level, when Senator Jim DeMint resigned one of the most powerful positions in the American political structure to head up the Heritage Foundation. I do not begrudge his choice, I imagine his life is heaven running a conservative think tank as opposed to dealing with Harry Reid or even the squishy elements of his own party on a daily basis in the US Senate. But this does not change the fact that one of the most effective "lever pullers" on our side walked away from government service.
All too often when the forces of liberty have the opportunity to bring about change or at least stop the downward spiral into tyranny, they fail to use their power. The examples are all too disheartening. I wrote a couple of posts about how the Republicans need to take this opportunity while they control so many state governments to reform the electoral college to their advantage.
Does anyone doubt that the Democrats given such an opportunity to help them gain more control over the political process would not seize upon it and force it through? How, after all, do we find ourselves in this position? Over the years the Progressive forces have sought out opportunities to increase their influence and pull the levers of power to gain more control. While the forces of liberty worry about how they will be perceived, Progressive have incrementally gained control of our institutions and government.
It is bad enough to watch as your political opponents use their power to destroy you, it is quite another thing to have the power and fail to use it. The Republicans still define politics in America as the art of the doable, when in fact politics in America has become a matter of survival of the republic itself.
When given the opportunity, Republicans must seize it. Look what Rand Paul did this week, he not only stood up to the powers that be, he changed the narrative from the perils of sequestration to constitutional freedoms. If you want to change the world, or just the nation's political dialogue, it takes boldness.
Conservative and libertarian elements in the Republican Party must not only seize control of the Republican Party, but must seek out every opportunity to pull the levers to gain control of political power. In a sense this is anathema to the philosophy of limited government, but the simple fact is that you can not limit government if you do not control it.
2/27/2013
Making Big Differences
Via-American Thinker
By Cos E. Callis
Perhaps it is only natural that when a contest ends 'closely' analysts focus their attention on 'the little things' that could have altered the outcome. A football fan may focus his ire on a singular 'bad call' during the final drive of a game, court watchers will apply considerable scrutiny to how one justice's vote might have been swayed in a 5-4 decision. It is not unsurprising that political observers of the 2012 election have expended substantial effort on the issues and tactics that might have moved the polls by a 'point-or-two', and then only in 'key battleground states'. While such analysis is not without merit, it does a disservice to the GOP to focus too much attention on 'the little things' when there are (at least) three major failings in the prevailing Republican strategy that could have made a seismic difference in the outcome. First, Romney left too many important issues 'on the table' in favor of a one-dimensional attack. Second, the GOP has continued to fumble the immigration issue. Finally, the Republican party has allowed President Obama and the Democrats to re-write the history of recent GOP Presidents without serious challenge.
With an emerging scandal in Benghazi tee'd up for him, Mitt Romney played the role of Lucy to the GOP's Charlie Brown. In the second debate the Governor did not just eschewed his opportunity to challenge the Presidents handling of Libya, but he (Romney) did so in a way that made it very difficult for others to carry the issue. Of the various crises over the past four years Benghazi, more than any other, demonstrated just how unfit Barack Obama is for the office. In Libya it was self-evident, from day one, that security at a U.S. consulate had been sacrificed. Further, we quickly learned (without the need for a protracted 'investigation' or 'hearings') that security had been downgraded against the advice of those to whom the president and Ms. Clinton should have been listening. In the face of overwhelming evidence that more security was needed, not less. It was no great leap of inductive reasoning to understand that the president sacrificed security in order to project the desired administration narrative. a U.S. ambassador and three others were murdered (Ambassador Stevens was even raped in the process). This was the greatest violation of American sovereignty since 9/11. It was obvious from the very beginning that it was the result of bad policy emanating from the White House. These events should have been a coup for the GOP, discrediting not only Obama himself but Hillary Clinton and their shared 'world view'. How 'big of a difference' could this have made? This week Gallup posted some interesting results: Republicans [92%], Independents [87%] and Democrats [86%] overwhelmingly agree that "Preventing future acts of international terrorism" is a 'very important' goal of national security. So what happens if the Romney/Ryan campaign indicts the president's performance by pointing out that President Obama's strategy to reduce terrorism is to merely redefine it? Imagine if, during the second debate, Mitt Romney had said, "We have a president whose chief strategy to reduce terrorism is to pretend it isn't terrorism." Of course a comment like this would have required aggressive prosecution, but it was there to be had. It is predictable that this alone could have swayed more than just a few points in the polls.
For too many years GOP has allowed the Democrats and 'the media' to control the narrative on immigration-politics....
Read entire article
By Cos E. Callis
Perhaps it is only natural that when a contest ends 'closely' analysts focus their attention on 'the little things' that could have altered the outcome. A football fan may focus his ire on a singular 'bad call' during the final drive of a game, court watchers will apply considerable scrutiny to how one justice's vote might have been swayed in a 5-4 decision. It is not unsurprising that political observers of the 2012 election have expended substantial effort on the issues and tactics that might have moved the polls by a 'point-or-two', and then only in 'key battleground states'. While such analysis is not without merit, it does a disservice to the GOP to focus too much attention on 'the little things' when there are (at least) three major failings in the prevailing Republican strategy that could have made a seismic difference in the outcome. First, Romney left too many important issues 'on the table' in favor of a one-dimensional attack. Second, the GOP has continued to fumble the immigration issue. Finally, the Republican party has allowed President Obama and the Democrats to re-write the history of recent GOP Presidents without serious challenge.
With an emerging scandal in Benghazi tee'd up for him, Mitt Romney played the role of Lucy to the GOP's Charlie Brown. In the second debate the Governor did not just eschewed his opportunity to challenge the Presidents handling of Libya, but he (Romney) did so in a way that made it very difficult for others to carry the issue. Of the various crises over the past four years Benghazi, more than any other, demonstrated just how unfit Barack Obama is for the office. In Libya it was self-evident, from day one, that security at a U.S. consulate had been sacrificed. Further, we quickly learned (without the need for a protracted 'investigation' or 'hearings') that security had been downgraded against the advice of those to whom the president and Ms. Clinton should have been listening. In the face of overwhelming evidence that more security was needed, not less. It was no great leap of inductive reasoning to understand that the president sacrificed security in order to project the desired administration narrative. a U.S. ambassador and three others were murdered (Ambassador Stevens was even raped in the process). This was the greatest violation of American sovereignty since 9/11. It was obvious from the very beginning that it was the result of bad policy emanating from the White House. These events should have been a coup for the GOP, discrediting not only Obama himself but Hillary Clinton and their shared 'world view'. How 'big of a difference' could this have made? This week Gallup posted some interesting results: Republicans [92%], Independents [87%] and Democrats [86%] overwhelmingly agree that "Preventing future acts of international terrorism" is a 'very important' goal of national security. So what happens if the Romney/Ryan campaign indicts the president's performance by pointing out that President Obama's strategy to reduce terrorism is to merely redefine it? Imagine if, during the second debate, Mitt Romney had said, "We have a president whose chief strategy to reduce terrorism is to pretend it isn't terrorism." Of course a comment like this would have required aggressive prosecution, but it was there to be had. It is predictable that this alone could have swayed more than just a few points in the polls.
For too many years GOP has allowed the Democrats and 'the media' to control the narrative on immigration-politics....
Read entire article
2/25/2013
Three Governors: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Via-RCPBy Ben Domenech
In the aftermath of the 2012 elections, Republicans took solace in the idea that while the GOP isn’t doing well in Washington, it’s winning in emphatic fashion elsewhere. Republicans have historic levels of dominance in governorships and state legislatures, and that’s led a number of conservatives to pronounce the states as where the right’s focus ought to be for the next several years, as Washington finds itself in constant gridlock.
Yet the failures of Republican governance aren’t limited to Washington – they can make mistakes in the states, too. Consider as a guide the past week of decisions which represented a contrast in styles from three self-styled conservative governors with starkly different paths, styles, and states: Virginia’s Bob McDonnell, Florida’s Rick Scott, and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker.
Of this trio, Walker is the Good. Facing the challenge of governing a blue state and with perhaps the nation’s most fractious political scene, Walker in the past week rejected Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and proposed a permanent rate cut in the state income tax, targeted at the middle class. His budget would cut state income taxes, allow no general sales tax increases, and holds down increases on property tax bills to no more than 1 percent a year for median value homes.
Walker called for dramatically expanding the school voucher program in the state as well, for any sizable district which has two schools receiving D or F grades. And despite a state commission recommending hiking gas taxes and fees to pay for transportation costs, instead Walker said he would sell or lease state properties and power plants to make up the difference.
The Bad is Rick Scott. The Florida governor went back on his word in the biggest way possible this week, announcing he would implement the same Medicaid expansion under Obamacare that his state sued to prevent. Scott’s entire career is arguably due to his opposition to Obamacare, and his argument that he was able to extract some concessions from the Obama administration along the way doesn’t fly with health policy experts. It turns out Kansas, which isn’t expanding Medicaid, is getting the same waiver Scott is for his system without the quid pro quo.
Scott’s depressing approach is an act of governance by desperation – a politician scared by the threat of Charlie Crist. You should never do things because you are afraid of Charlie Crist. The day you do that, you should probably quit politics.
And that brings us to Virginia’s Bob McDonnell. Telegenic as he is, he is The Ugly. His determination to have a legislative legacy led him to ram through a $6 billion tax increase on the people of the Old Dominion (a tax increase nearly six times the size of his original proposal) for the sake of building more roads. Remember when Virginia Republicans ran whole campaigns on eliminating the car tax? McDonnell just boosted it, and the sales tax, and a slew of other taxes, too.
McDonnell was so desperate to ditch his anti-tax pledge and get this tax hike passed through the legislature – he did so with a higher percentage of Democrat votes than Republican – that he even went back on his word to oppose Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, endorsing a Democrat-favored commission to advance the costly expansion. That’s right: McDonnell was so set on raising taxes, he caved on Obamacare implementation, too. Which will lead to more taxes in the future, too.
Of the three of these men, Walker arguably had the least experience before reaching the governorship. He doesn’t have a college degree, a telegenic mane, or a presidential resume. But the primary difference between these three men is that one approached his decision thinking about re-election, one approached it thinking about efficient management, and one approached the decision process focused on sparking dramatic policy reform. Just thinking about re-election is old style politics. And benign management was fine in the days when leviathan wasn’t a reality. But what’s needed now is someone who can take a far more aggressive reform-minded approach, recognizing that political capital is useless if left unspent.
What’s needed is fewer candidates who care about being viewed as pragmatic by the liberal press or care about consultant advice about the next election, and more who care about what’s right, who will stand on conservative principles and reject increases in the size of government and the size of the tax burden. After all, if a pragmatic conservative’s role is to raise taxes and expand entitlements, what’s the difference between them and a pragmatic liberal?
2/24/2013
Responding to the Apocalypse
It almost goes without saying that the pending sequester can not possibly have as severe an impact as the Obama Administration is attempting to portray to the public. However that does not mean that Obama and his allies in the media will not actively attempt to make the worst of it.
I suspect that plans are already in place to disrupt essential services, create delays and in anyway possible make this shot glass of budget cuts from the ocean of red ink look as devastating as possible.
It is not like we do not have decades of examples of how the Progressive power structure will spin meaningless events into apocalyptic disasters in order to promote their goals. Not only will they promote and propagandize every little problem into a crisis, they are fully willing and able to create actual crisis with real world consequences in order to advance their agenda.
As an example it is easy to laugh at the absurdity of the fluidity of the "climate change" theorem, where global warming is now defined as massive blizzards. However the shape shifting ability of the statist has in fact left us with disastrous energy and economic policies that are having real world consequences on our lives. When the conscious of your opponent is ruled by an "ends justify the means" morality, it ceases to be a matter of humor but rather one of survival.
We may mock all these Cassandra scenarios that the Obama Administration is forecasting to occur with the coming sequester, but does anyone seriously doubt that Obama is not willing to unleash the power of his presidency to make them reality to some degree? This, after all, is the man who can stand before the nation time and time and lie in order to shift blame, destroy political foes, or by any way necessary move his progressive ideology FORWARD. This is an administration that will knowingly send guns to drug cartels in order to advance a policy objective without any regard for the foreseeable murderous consequences and yet we doubt that he would cause longer lines at airports? Or shut down Yellowstone National Park? If you think he is incapable of pulling the levers of the federal government to inflict pain on the American citizenry in order to prove his point that without government we as a people are helpless, you have not been paying attention.
The question is, not whether he will do it, or to a lesser degree how the puppets in the media cover it, the question is, how will the Republicans respond to it? Knowing that Obama will do this and the media will support him, does the GOP have a strategy to respond?
As these stories of doom begin to fill the airwaves will Republican leadership confront them head on? Will they unflinchingly and without fear accuse the administration of maliciously creating hardships? Will they point to where alternatives were available but the Obama administration "to score political points" made matters worse through their choices and actions?
Does the GOP have a crisis team in place to evaluate and respond to the coming storm? Have they designated a spokesman or spokesmen to go out front and explain and shout to the public if necessary what Obama is doing all the while repeatedly pointing to his hypocrisy and lack of action on the issue. Why not have someone like Paul Ryan on the House side and Rob Portman on the Senate side, politicians with the economic gravitas, be the point men in responding to this Tsunami of negativism about to be unleashed against the supposed proponents of limited government?
Will the GOP stand for what it says it believes in, will it actively fight the fight for fiscal sanity and restraint? Recent history and the political calculations over principle of a few important GOP governors would indicate that as usual the Republicans, with all too few exceptions will cave to the progressive and statist forces which threaten the republic. Even worse is the fact that it is doubtful that the Republican Party has even thought about how they will respond to the coming Obama induced Apocalypse.
MY HOPE is that the Republicans have CHANGEd and will begin to fight back, but I am doubtful.
2/22/2013
The Banality of the RINOs
Via-American Spectator
By MATT PURPLE
What is it that moderate Republicans want?
I’m told we’re living in a Moderate Moment. After Mitt Romney lost the election, moderate Republicans started emerging from every corner of the country, from Northwest Washington, D.C. to Arlington, Virginia. It was time, they declared, for calm voices to prevail in the Republican Party. The Tea Party, the right-wing, the “Conservative Entertainment Complex” — all this must be cast overboard for the GOP to win again
The latest iteration of this came in Wednesday’s Washington Post from columnist Kathleen Parker:
But how would her brand of Republicanism differ from the conservative base she derides? This is the closest thing we get to a policy prescription in her column: “Most would like the country to rock along without drama — operating within a reasonable budget, with respect for privacy and the rule of law, compassion for the disadvantaged and an abundance of concern for national security, including border control but not necessarily drone attacks on citizens.”
Yes, if only there was a political movement calling for reasonable budgets, more privacy for the individual, upholding the rule of law, and concern for national security. She must imagine hordes of earthy Tea Partiers holding the Post in their gunpowder-stained fingers while recoiling and exclaiming, “Compassion for the disadvantaged?! This paper’s gone to the dogs!”
Read entire ariticle
By MATT PURPLE
What is it that moderate Republicans want?
I’m told we’re living in a Moderate Moment. After Mitt Romney lost the election, moderate Republicans started emerging from every corner of the country, from Northwest Washington, D.C. to Arlington, Virginia. It was time, they declared, for calm voices to prevail in the Republican Party. The Tea Party, the right-wing, the “Conservative Entertainment Complex” — all this must be cast overboard for the GOP to win again
The latest iteration of this came in Wednesday’s Washington Post from columnist Kathleen Parker:
RINO, of course, refers to Republicans In Name Only and is the pejorative term used against those who fail to march in lockstep with the so-called conservative base. I used “so-called” because, though the hard-right faction of the party tends to be viewed as The Base, this isn’t necessarily so. My guess is there are now more RINOs than those who, though evangelical in their zeal, are poison to their party’s ability to win national elections.Parker calls for a RINO uprising, a new faction on the right to counter the Tea Party. That’s all well and good. There are genuine differences of opinion on the right, and a little inward dialectic never hurt anyone.
But how would her brand of Republicanism differ from the conservative base she derides? This is the closest thing we get to a policy prescription in her column: “Most would like the country to rock along without drama — operating within a reasonable budget, with respect for privacy and the rule of law, compassion for the disadvantaged and an abundance of concern for national security, including border control but not necessarily drone attacks on citizens.”
Yes, if only there was a political movement calling for reasonable budgets, more privacy for the individual, upholding the rule of law, and concern for national security. She must imagine hordes of earthy Tea Partiers holding the Post in their gunpowder-stained fingers while recoiling and exclaiming, “Compassion for the disadvantaged?! This paper’s gone to the dogs!”
Read entire ariticle
2/06/2013
No thank you, Karl Rove
Via-NY DAILY NEWS
The Republican establishment must give way to new leadership
Republicans were sent to the woodshed in 2012. And when you’re sent to the woodshed, you sit there quietly and think about what you’ve done
.
But somehow, Karl Rove doesn’t think he played a part in all that. Despite more than $170 million spent through his American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS super PACs, and nearly nothing to show for it, Rove believes the simple solution is to slap a new label on his outfit and go rake in some more dough.
“The Conservative Victory Project, which is backed by Karl Rove and his allies who built American Crossroads into the largest Republican super PAC of the 2012 election cycle, will start by intensely vetting prospective contenders for congressional races to try to weed out candidates who are seen as too flawed to win general elections,” reported The New York Times over the weekend.
But there are plenty of Republican donors who are furious at Crossroads for wasting their money and aren’t going to be fooled by Rove’s rebranding strategy — or his promises that he will get better results the next time around.
I talked to one Republican operative in Washington who put it this way: “These guys took millions of dollars from big donors last year and lined their pockets. The new money will benefit all the same staff, pollsters, admen and vendors. It’s throwing good money after bad.”
Frustrated donors are looking for new places to put their money, and they’ll have no shortage of grassroots organizations to consider.
As my colleague Steve Kornacki wrote in Salon, “Given their demonstrated ability to rile up the conservative grassroots and deliver serious financial boosts to their preferred candidates, they probably have the means to fight Rove’s new effort.”
The Republican establishment must give way to new leadership
Republicans were sent to the woodshed in 2012. And when you’re sent to the woodshed, you sit there quietly and think about what you’ve done
.
But somehow, Karl Rove doesn’t think he played a part in all that. Despite more than $170 million spent through his American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS super PACs, and nearly nothing to show for it, Rove believes the simple solution is to slap a new label on his outfit and go rake in some more dough.
“The Conservative Victory Project, which is backed by Karl Rove and his allies who built American Crossroads into the largest Republican super PAC of the 2012 election cycle, will start by intensely vetting prospective contenders for congressional races to try to weed out candidates who are seen as too flawed to win general elections,” reported The New York Times over the weekend.
But there are plenty of Republican donors who are furious at Crossroads for wasting their money and aren’t going to be fooled by Rove’s rebranding strategy — or his promises that he will get better results the next time around.
I talked to one Republican operative in Washington who put it this way: “These guys took millions of dollars from big donors last year and lined their pockets. The new money will benefit all the same staff, pollsters, admen and vendors. It’s throwing good money after bad.”
Frustrated donors are looking for new places to put their money, and they’ll have no shortage of grassroots organizations to consider.
As my colleague Steve Kornacki wrote in Salon, “Given their demonstrated ability to rile up the conservative grassroots and deliver serious financial boosts to their preferred candidates, they probably have the means to fight Rove’s new effort.”
Rove Vs. the Tea Party
Via-TownHall
Ben Shapiro
During the 2012 election cycle, Tea Partiers were told by their supposed betters that their ignorance of everyday politics meant that they should take a back seat to the Republican Party establishment. Brandishing the so-called Buckley Rule with quasi-religious fervor -- the notion that Republicans should run the most conservative candidate who can win -- the establishment GOP proclaimed that the only presidential candidate who could win was Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. They suggested that four-term former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson was a shoe-in for the Senate. They explained that the Tea Party was responsible for failed Senate candidates like Todd Akin (false) and Richard Mourdock (true).
They knew best.
The only trouble was, they didn't.
As it turns out, the Buckley Rule relies on prophecy. No good political strategy relies on Carnac-style crystal ball reading; a better rule would have been to nominate conservatives who are articulate (Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz), regardless of whether the wise men who loved John McCain and Mitt Romney think conservative positions make candidates unelectable.
But despite their 2012 losses, the establishment has decided that the problem in 2012 wasn't their own incompetence -- it was the dastardly Tea Party, which in its zealotry for conservatism, has ignored the need for victory.
And so the Karl Rove establishment leaked to the far-left New York Times that the "biggest donors in the Republican Party" were working with the leaders of Rove's American Crossroads super PAC to "recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party's effort to win control of the Senate."
Why didn't Rove and company tell the Times that they were interested in training conservative candidates in media fluency? Why didn't they approach the Tea Party instead, and offer their get-out-the-vote services and electoral strategies?
Because, at root, there is a clash at the heart of today's Republican Party. The Tea Party wants to change tactics. The establishment wants to discard principle.
Read entire article
Ben Shapiro
During the 2012 election cycle, Tea Partiers were told by their supposed betters that their ignorance of everyday politics meant that they should take a back seat to the Republican Party establishment. Brandishing the so-called Buckley Rule with quasi-religious fervor -- the notion that Republicans should run the most conservative candidate who can win -- the establishment GOP proclaimed that the only presidential candidate who could win was Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. They suggested that four-term former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson was a shoe-in for the Senate. They explained that the Tea Party was responsible for failed Senate candidates like Todd Akin (false) and Richard Mourdock (true).
They knew best.
The only trouble was, they didn't.
As it turns out, the Buckley Rule relies on prophecy. No good political strategy relies on Carnac-style crystal ball reading; a better rule would have been to nominate conservatives who are articulate (Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz), regardless of whether the wise men who loved John McCain and Mitt Romney think conservative positions make candidates unelectable.
But despite their 2012 losses, the establishment has decided that the problem in 2012 wasn't their own incompetence -- it was the dastardly Tea Party, which in its zealotry for conservatism, has ignored the need for victory.
And so the Karl Rove establishment leaked to the far-left New York Times that the "biggest donors in the Republican Party" were working with the leaders of Rove's American Crossroads super PAC to "recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party's effort to win control of the Senate."
Why didn't Rove and company tell the Times that they were interested in training conservative candidates in media fluency? Why didn't they approach the Tea Party instead, and offer their get-out-the-vote services and electoral strategies?
Because, at root, there is a clash at the heart of today's Republican Party. The Tea Party wants to change tactics. The establishment wants to discard principle.
Read entire article
2/02/2013
The GOP Needs a General Grant
Via-American Thinker
By Tom Thurlow
Lately there have been a number of analogies made between various liberal political positions and the abolitionist Union side in the Civil War. No doubt this is a result of the 2012 Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln, and its notoriety, and the universal need to identify with the virtuous side of any historical struggle.
A few days ago, on CNN's Piers Morgan's show, columnist Frank Rich likened opposition to gun control to slave-owners in the pre-war South who did not want to give up their slaves. According to Rich, "I think that in some ways the gun culture is as entrenched in the American psyche as [was] slavery."
As a gun owner, I resent the comparison. But if there are any credible analogies to be made with today's political movements and Abraham Lincoln, it is between the Union side of the Civil War and today's Republican Party. Hear me out on this.
I don't mean to simply point out that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, which he was. Recall from history that during the Civil War, President Lincoln had a problem getting generals who would actively engage the Confederate army. "Some of my generals are so slow," Lincoln once remarked, "that molasses in the coldest days of winter is a race-horse compared to them."
We conservatives have a similar problem with our leaders, who hesitate to engage with President Obama and other high-ranking liberals.
Read entire article
By Tom Thurlow
Lately there have been a number of analogies made between various liberal political positions and the abolitionist Union side in the Civil War. No doubt this is a result of the 2012 Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln, and its notoriety, and the universal need to identify with the virtuous side of any historical struggle.
A few days ago, on CNN's Piers Morgan's show, columnist Frank Rich likened opposition to gun control to slave-owners in the pre-war South who did not want to give up their slaves. According to Rich, "I think that in some ways the gun culture is as entrenched in the American psyche as [was] slavery."
As a gun owner, I resent the comparison. But if there are any credible analogies to be made with today's political movements and Abraham Lincoln, it is between the Union side of the Civil War and today's Republican Party. Hear me out on this.
I don't mean to simply point out that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, which he was. Recall from history that during the Civil War, President Lincoln had a problem getting generals who would actively engage the Confederate army. "Some of my generals are so slow," Lincoln once remarked, "that molasses in the coldest days of winter is a race-horse compared to them."
We conservatives have a similar problem with our leaders, who hesitate to engage with President Obama and other high-ranking liberals.
Read entire article
1/30/2013
Enough of This Glumness
Via-American Spectator</strong>
By Peter Ferrara
There’s light at the end of the Obama tunnel.
Conservatives are still glum about the election, and the upper hand President Obama seems to have over Republicans. But the political stage has been framed far worse for conservatives and Republicans in the past.
In 1964, conservatives and Republicans were annihilated, when the conservative leader Barry Goldwater was crushed in the election by more than 20 points. Democrats held 295 House seats to 140 for the Republicans, and in the Senate, Democrats held a filibuster proof 67 seats, to 33 for the Republicans. This just 19 years after FDR had dominated American politics for a generation. The Republicans seemed dead, and conservatives were a disfavored minority within the Republican Party, distrusted as sure losers.
But in 1966, Republicans gained 47 House seats, and 3 in the Senate. Two years later, Richard Nixon won the White House, and was reelected in 1972 in an historic landslide, winning all but one state (Massachusetts).
By 1974, the Republicans seemed routed again. Watergate had forced Nixon to resign in disgrace, and the Republicans were annihilated again in the 1974 midterm elections. The Democrats gained 49 House seats, leading the Republicans 291 to 144, almost all the way back to 1964. Democrats gained 3 seats in the Senate, to lead the Republicans 60 to 38, with one Conservative Party Senator from New York, and one independent. In 1976, Democrat Jimmy Carter won back the White House from 8 years of Republican control.
But that was just a prelude to the Reagan domination of American politics for a generation, 24 years, after that. And during this time up until Reagan’s election, there was no Fox News, no conservative talk radio, no Internet and conservative blogosphere, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page did not blossom until the late 1970s.
Moreover, Republicans and conservatives only lost the 2012 election because millions of conservative voters stayed home, uninspired by the Northeast liberal Romney. This column tried to alert the public about that problem, in an offering entitled “RINO Romney Is the Least Electable.” But the Republicans still held the House majority, and hold complete control in 25 states with both the Governor and majorities in the legislature to only 14 for the Democrats.
Now Republicans and conservatives are on the comeback trail again. Suddenly, the upcoming issues do not favor Obama. And believe it or not, congressional Republicans are playing these issues right.
Read entire article
By Peter Ferrara
There’s light at the end of the Obama tunnel.
Conservatives are still glum about the election, and the upper hand President Obama seems to have over Republicans. But the political stage has been framed far worse for conservatives and Republicans in the past.
In 1964, conservatives and Republicans were annihilated, when the conservative leader Barry Goldwater was crushed in the election by more than 20 points. Democrats held 295 House seats to 140 for the Republicans, and in the Senate, Democrats held a filibuster proof 67 seats, to 33 for the Republicans. This just 19 years after FDR had dominated American politics for a generation. The Republicans seemed dead, and conservatives were a disfavored minority within the Republican Party, distrusted as sure losers.
But in 1966, Republicans gained 47 House seats, and 3 in the Senate. Two years later, Richard Nixon won the White House, and was reelected in 1972 in an historic landslide, winning all but one state (Massachusetts).
By 1974, the Republicans seemed routed again. Watergate had forced Nixon to resign in disgrace, and the Republicans were annihilated again in the 1974 midterm elections. The Democrats gained 49 House seats, leading the Republicans 291 to 144, almost all the way back to 1964. Democrats gained 3 seats in the Senate, to lead the Republicans 60 to 38, with one Conservative Party Senator from New York, and one independent. In 1976, Democrat Jimmy Carter won back the White House from 8 years of Republican control.
But that was just a prelude to the Reagan domination of American politics for a generation, 24 years, after that. And during this time up until Reagan’s election, there was no Fox News, no conservative talk radio, no Internet and conservative blogosphere, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page did not blossom until the late 1970s.
Moreover, Republicans and conservatives only lost the 2012 election because millions of conservative voters stayed home, uninspired by the Northeast liberal Romney. This column tried to alert the public about that problem, in an offering entitled “RINO Romney Is the Least Electable.” But the Republicans still held the House majority, and hold complete control in 25 states with both the Governor and majorities in the legislature to only 14 for the Democrats.
Now Republicans and conservatives are on the comeback trail again. Suddenly, the upcoming issues do not favor Obama. And believe it or not, congressional Republicans are playing these issues right.
Read entire article
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